June 25, 2007

Winning Is Better Than Losing

Pardon the weeping and the wailing and the gnashing of teeth; I have been through the fiery furnace with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, wept tears in rain, and been cast adrift like Bligh in the lifeboat. That is, we had another lousy week at the old Watcher's Council vote.

Here are the winners, the golden boys of endless summer:

Council winner

A sad confession to make: I generally like JoshuaPundit's entries, but this one left me cold: yet another post on the supposed incompetence and treason of the evil Bush administration. I think his disappointment at not getting the president that he wasn't promised sometimes overwhelms his fairness:

After millions of dollars and months of arming and training the Bush Administration's preferred terrorists in Fatah under Mahmoud Abbas and spending millions of dollars on them to prepare them to push Hamas out of the picture, the US has ended up with what stockbrokers genteelly call a `non-performing investment'.

Normally when that happens, an investor cuts his losses and pulls out. But since that would upset the Bush Administrations Arab pals, it looks like we're going to do nothing of the kind.

Instead, the Bush Administration is planning on giving even more arms and money to our preferred terrorists, Abbas and Fatah.

The horse manure pushed all along by the Bush Administration was that the solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict was an eventual two-state solution with Israel living next to a `Palestine' that somehow marvelously turned from the genocidal terrorist enclave Arafat created into Switzerland by signing some papers and maybe transferring some real estate. And that fantasy was based on the idea that Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah were somehow different than Hamas when it came to their long term goals of conquering and destroying Israel or siding with the West.

Etc., etc., and so forth... a seemingly endless threnody directed at the core of evil in the world today: George W. Bush, the great betrayer.

I happen to agree with JoshuaPundit that it's a waste of time dealing with Fatah; but it's not an insane position to take that Fatah may be easier to control or even defeat than Hamas. And if one takes that tack, as Bush evidently does, then it makes sense to support them in their war against Hamas. Too, Bush may hope that the two will fight each other to the exclusion of launching any substantive attack on Israel.

I weary of extremism in defense of the impossible: JoshuaPundit wants Israel to annex Gaza and remove "the majority of the local population" elsewhere, and he wants us somehow to force Jordan to "resettle" all the West-Bank Palestinians into Jordan or other Arab states.

Yes, that would be lovely. I'm sure the Arabs will rush to comply.

Since Bush won't waste time trying to do that which cannot be done, JP accuses him of being a Saudi puppet. Did I mention that JP also believes that we went to war in Iraq on orders from the House of Saud, which runs American foreign policy? And that Bush is deliberately seeking defeat in Iraq to appease the Iranians?

But worse than this peculiar way of looking at world events is the fact that JoshuaPundit's win was substantial: Evidently, lots of members of the Watcher's Council thought he was on a roll, and perhaps they agree with him that Bush has committed high treason to our country. (Can you tell I'm not happy with the Council this week?)

My own number-one choice, Muslim And Christian? In One Body?, by Cheat Seeking Missiles -- about the Seattle Episcopal priest who says she is also a Moslem -- did fairly well, placing with four or five votes.

My second choice, Overstating a Problem, by Rhymes With Right, got one other second-place vote besides mine. Which is better than my own entry -- Yon On Baqouba -- got! (Though the source of my commentary post did considerably better; see below.)

Nouncil winner

This is the discussion of the Arrowhead Ripper campaign in Iraq's Diyala Province that I comment upon in my own post; it's possible folks thought that it redundant to vote for both Torah and Mishnah (how's that analogy for chutzpah!)

My two choices for non-Council ("Nouncil," in my own twisted language, a la "Funes the Memorious" by Borges) were:

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Comments

The following hissed in response by: Terrye

Ya know, it would be nice if some of these folks who think they have all the answers could actually have a stab at running things for awhile. They might find out that we don't always get what we want. Shocking, I know. Today, Zawhiri of AlQaida was talking up his buddies in Hamas. Now I realize that to a lot of folks there is no difference between Fatah and Hamas, but it seems that AlQaida sees a difference and that does mean something.

However, whatever Joshua might think this situation between Israel and the Palestinians was going on a long time before Bush came along. In fact every president since 1947 has had to deal with the question of the Arabs and the Jews, and all of them have tried to come up with solutions. Maybe JP thinks it is a piece of cake but apparently the folks who actually have to deal with the problem have found it insoluble.

And I have heard this whole thing about the House of Saud before, well what do they want to do? Nuke Saudi Arabia? Invade? Oh yeah, the American people would love that. And what president has confronted the Saudis? Can we think of anyone?

You know I think the problem is there are people out there who just refuse to deal with the fact that there are not always simple answers to everything. They got a Republican president, so they expect him to kick some ass and clean that mess in the Middle East up, right now, today, this minute. When they are confronted with the reality that sometimes you have to deal with people you do not like, they go off the deep end.

I am beginning to think that some of these people sound like children.

Rather then suggest that Bush is `guilty of treason', I instead merely say that he is weak and overly enamored of the Saudis and the other autocrats of the UAE. There's no other cogent way to explain some of the interesting lapses in our strategy in fighting this war to win, not only overseas but on the home front,where the Saudis openly export jihad through the mosques and madrassahs they fund through the Islamic Society of North America. As well as funding CAIR.

I likewise believe you perhaps misunderstand ( and thus unintentionally mischaracterize) my views on our involvement in Iraq. You might want to reread this ...and this..and see if your perceptions change.

The `Palestinian' issue is just a smokescreen designed to divert the Arab masses and preclude the Arab countries from having to accept the idea of having to deal with the idea of a democratic non-Muslim nation in their midst. That's why they have set up a `peace' ultimatum that would involve the national suicide of the `little Satan' ( and thus a defeat for the `big Satan', America) if it were implemented.

As long as we continue to enable this fiction by entertaining the idea of a second Arab `Palestinian' state, the problem will remain unsolved.

The US, given the amount of aid we give Egypt and Jordan has considerable leverage to break this cycle...but that would upset the Saudis, so it isn't being done.

Any money and arms we give to Fatah will end up in the hands of Hamas, just as the it did in Gaza.

At worst, even if the Arabs declined to cooperate in ending the refugee problem they caused in 1948 by attacking Israel, it would provide some badly needed clarity on the issue.

As I said in my piece, we have an historic change to change the entire meme of our dealings with the Arab world and approach them from strength..and that's something that has worked well in the past.

I responded to you via e-mail, because I generally prefer the comments section of Big Lizards to be reserved for readers (such as yourself) to make their cases, rather than for me to defend my posts... which I could do in a subsequent blogpost, if I had any new points worth enshrining!

In this case, I don't think I wrote anything beyond the same arguments I've made many times before in other posts.

(The only two exceptions to my policy are immigration and same-sex marriage, about which I made conscious decisions to duke it out in the comments whenever necessary.)

My apologies, Dafydd. I likewise did not intend for this to become a debate and am sorry if this seemed in any way like attempting to pick a fight..I merely sought to insert a little clarification an dclear up what I felt was a misunderstanding.

We seem to be speaking at cross-purposes! You are welcome to post any comment here clarifying your post on JoshuaPundit, arguing the case of your post, or adding more insights to your post. I enjoy your site, and I always appreciate readers who make comments, whether they agree or disagree with me.

I only meant that, rather than post my killer refutations here as a comment (my arguments crush yours like a dinosaur standing on a matzoh!), I prefer to leave this space free for you and all the other readers to post comments and argue with each other.

Since I have the megaphone on this particular blog and can publish actual posts, it only seems fair that I (generally) stay out of the comments section, allowing readers -- both those with their own blogs and those without -- to run riot.

Some bloggers like to defend their posts in the comments; others prefer to leave that space to the readers, only making sure that nothing actionable is said. I'm in the latter camp.

You made good points; I think I have good responses, but I've already made them in earlier posts -- so I sent them to you directly.

There is nothing for you to apologize for: You are utilizing the comments section for exactly the purpose for which it was designed! (As is Terrye in disagreeing with you, as would be KarmiCommunist for one of his patented "drop MOABs on everyone" comments, and so forth.)

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